Week Sixteen

What can you expect from your baby at 16 weeks? What should you be doing for them? Read on.

Objecting

Well, it had to happen – after all those beautiful smiles and winning laughs that made you feel that you could do no wrong, your baby will at this age discover how to communicate her disapproval to you. No longer can you take a toy away from her, or pick her up and move her, without her having an opinion about what you’re doing. And if she’s not happy, she’ll send you a message loud and clear by screaming, crying, stomping her feet (as much as she can) and generally making a fuss that you can’t ignore. As she begins to separate from you in the coming months, she will start to assert more of her personality and opinion.

Mouthing objects

Now that your baby can hold toys in his hands, have you noticed how often (and how fast) they end up in his mouth? Is he hungry? Do the toys taste good? The mouth is a very sensitive area – there are more nerve endings per square millimetre than anywhere else in the body – and so your baby uses his mouth to learn more about the object he is trying to understand. His mouth can tell him more about the texture, shape or temperature of an object than his hands or eyes can.

Mouthing toys also begins to teach your baby the oral skills he’ll need later when he’s learning to chew and swallow food and talk. It is important, though, to always be mindful of what your baby is putting in his mouth – most toys that are labelled ‘not suitable for 3 years and under’ have this labelling because of the choking risk they pose young children.

Your baby’s first cold

We all know that the common cold isn’t serious but it can make you feel miserable and for your baby who has an immature immune system, being laid low with her first cold can take its toll on both her and you. Our best tips are:

Use a vaporiser in her room when she sleeps

To minimise congestion at night, elevate one end of her cot so her head is higher than her body

Keep her warm but don’t overdress her

Use paracetamol if she has a fever but try to avoid other over-the-counter cold remedies as these may just confuse her symptoms

Give her 72 hours leave to be grizzly and miserable – she may not want to sleep or feed properly during this time

kidspot can be viewed on multiple devices

a note about relevant advertising

We collect information about the content (including ads) you use across this site and use it to make both advertising and content more
relevant to you on our network and other sites. This is also known as Online Behavioural Advertising. You can find out more about our
policy and your choices, including how to opt-out here

Our Privacy
Policy
includes important information about
our collection, use and disclosure of your personal
information (including to provide you with targeted
advertising based on your online activities). It explains
that if you do not provide us with information we have
requested from you, we may not be able to provide you
with the goods and services you require. It also explains
how you can access or seek correction of your personal
information, how you can complain about a breach of the
Australian Privacy Principles and how we will deal with a
complaint of that nature.